He’ll soon be revisiting “A Raisin in the Sun” this spring with stars Denzel Washington and Diahann Carroll. But Leon is also working on another long-term project, and a first for him on Broadway: A musical.

“Holler If Ya Hear Me” is a musical based on the work of the late rap artist Tupac Shakur. Leon calls it an “unconditional love story,” and an “anti-violence story” that isn’t a biography of Tupac’s life. It simply uses Tupac’s music.

“Some people look at hip-hop and they think they hate everything black or they think they hate everything that uses profanity, or they think it’s about gun violence,” Leon said, calling Tupac a “prophet.”

Shakur died in 1996 of gunshot wounds suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting. He was 25 years old.

“When you look at the lyrics of his music, he was always talking about universal things like honor, betrayal, family,” Leon said.

Leon said he tinkered with some of the music, but didn’t need to change much, and then set it to an American drama, adding that he was given the blessing of Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, who is a producer on the show with Eric Gold. Todd Kreidler wrote the book and Wayne Cilento handled the show’s choreography.

“[Tupac] was just trying to talk about life and say something about the country and being an American and raising a family here,” Leon said.

The director searched for a group of multitalented actors — a cast is in place but he declined to name of its members at this time. While Tupac is often labeled a rapper, Leon said much of his work was R&B with melodies as opposed to straight rap.

“We had to have a group of actors that could sing, that could rap, that could dance — that could do hip-hop dance as well as straightforward Broadway musical dance. We had to have a good mix of 24 people who could do it all, but above all we needed actors who could tell the story,” he said.

The producers have raised the funding, and Leon has workshopped “Holler If Ya Hear Me” three times. The show is ready for Broadway, Leon said, but just needs a home because “there’s a backlog in available theaters.”

While Leon has produced musicals and operas in his career, directing “Holler If Ya Hear Me” will be new for him. “It’s great that I get a chance to do a Broadway musical. Sometimes the industry has a way of putting you in a corner, like ‘This is what he does.’ Especially if you do it well,” he said. “I’m thankful to work as often as I do on Broadway.”